


Such a Beautiful Angel

by eurosthewanderer



Series: So I watched the Spanish Princess and lost my mind [5]
Category: 16th Century CE RPF, The Constant Princess - Philippa Gregory, The Spanish Princess (TV), The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anophthalmia, Birth Defects, Child Abuse, F/M, Hostage Situations, Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:48:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27093811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurosthewanderer/pseuds/eurosthewanderer
Summary: There was some great peace that seemed to sink into his bones when he lay beside her; whether or not they lay beneath the branches of a tree or next to the crackling fire she kept ablaze during the winter months or on the rare occasions he could tuck her beneath his sheets and hold her too his chest in the dead of night."Henry?" Catherine muttered. "What are you thinking about?"
Relationships: Catalina de Cardonas/Oviedo, Catherine of Aragon/Henry VIII of England, Past Catherine of Aragon/Maximilian I Holy Roman Emperor, Past Henry VIII of England/Anne Hastings
Series: So I watched the Spanish Princess and lost my mind [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472648
Kudos: 21





	Such a Beautiful Angel

**Author's Note:**

> So instead of working on my H/A or Hobbit or Star Trek fics here I am, writing something new again.  
> Hope you enjoy!!  
> 

_… stating publicly in French that his highness was happy because he was owner of such a beautiful angel and that he had found himself a flower.”_ \- Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen, Giles Temlett

* * *

**January 1st, 1516**

Margery rested on her chest, soft sucking noises coming from her mouth. Catherine lifted one of her three week old daughter’s tightly curled little fists up and kissed her knuckles gently. She was beautiful, perfect and so very, very tiny or so Catherine thought. She felt the urge to sob rise in her chest but swallowed it down. It would only distress Margery. 

Catherine traced a finger over Margery’s cheek to her sweet, pink mouth.

“God bless you,” Catherine said, voice cracking. “God bless you, my darling.”

Margery looked up at her with her one, unfocused baby eye. The other would never open. 

The midwife’s face had gone pale when she’d checked Catherine’s little daughter over, eyes widening in an expression of horror. 

Henry hadn’t come to see either of them since she was born. Rosa had told her he’d simply gone to pray after she’d told him. 

“I wonder what sin he’s committed that he blames himself for this,” Rosa had later said to Lina when she thought Catherine was sleeping. 

“It is God’s will,” She had snapped, not lifting her head from her pillow. “And not your concern.”

Margery started to fuss in Catherine’s arms, clearly hungry, so she kissed her head and made to call the wetnurse over before she thought the better of it. The woman looked at her daughter with fear, as if she was some demon and besides Catherine was alone in her room. She would have to shout to summon the woman and that would only distress the little Princess more. 

Catherine shifted Margery in her arms and slipped her nightgown off her shoulder. 

She put the baby’s mouth to her nipple but Margery promptly failed to latch. Her little face scrunched up in discomfort and Catherine cooed down at her. It took a moment but she got Margery’s lip around her nipple. 

Catherine grimaced but settled herself in to watch her daughter nurse. The sight was much more  _ pleasant _ than the sensation. Catherine thought she would have to increase the wetnurse’s pay, after she had hired a new wetnurse. 

Margery made soft sounds as she drank from her mother and sunk her nails into the flesh of Catherine’s breast. Catherine quietly lifted her small fist up and let her curl her fingers around one of hers. 

“My own darling,” Catherine murmured to her little daughter. “So strong; such a strong little thing.”

The soft thump of door closing made her look up from Margery to see her husband staring at them from across the room. 

“What are you doing?” He asked her. 

“Your highness,” Catherine replied and held his gaze. 

“Where are your ladies?” He asked and strode over to her. “Where’s her nurse?”

“I wouldn’t know, your highness,” Catherine said simply. 

Henry stopped when he was standing at the end of her bed and looked to two of them over. Catherine looked down at their daughter. At this point, she thought it would’ve been better if he hadn’t come. 

He walked around the bed. Catherine watched his face carefully as he sat down next to her. 

Henry looked tired and his eyes were red rimmed. 

Catherine supposed he would want some sympathy from her. She wasn’t much in the mood to give it to him. 

“Can I hold her hand?” Henry asked. Catherine looked down at where Margery was still squeezing her finger. She nodded and moved her hand and Margery’s arm toward him. He pulled Margery’s tiny, pudgy fist from around her finger and wrapped it around his. 

Catherine watched as Henry’s face lit up when Margery squeezed his finger and smiled herself. 

“I think she has your hair,” Henry commented. 

“Perhaps,” Catherine said. “Mine was much lighter when I was young.”

Margery’s hair was the same auburn as Catherine’s rather than Henry’s darker, occasionally slightly wavy strands.

But it would be his, she knew that in her bones. 

“She is strong despite her faults,” Henry said. 

“God would not have given her to us if she did not have the strength to be a Princess of England,” Catherine told him, voice too sharp and too hard. She didn’t care. 

Henry looked up at her with that challenging half-grin; a warning; a reminder of who she was speaking to.

Her King and her husband. Husband and King.

“My love,” His face broke open, eyes wet. “My own heart. I... _ We _ will be strong for her. I swear it on everything Holy. I promise you.  _ I promise you _ , Catherine.”

* * *

**January 2nd, 1512**

Catherine buried Maximilian not five months after they were wed. She wasn’t surprised. Her husband was a decade or so younger than her own father but he had none of Ferdinand’s care for his body. When she had left Spain her father still rode thrice a day, sparred thrice a week and spent an hour every morning wandering through the gardens, often accompanied by Catherine herself or her stepmother. 

Germaine de Foix liked gardens and plants more than any other woman Catherine had ever met. She spent her free time fussing over her plans for a new  layout,  à la mode française of course. Germaine delighted in showing off her excellent landscaping to her husband and step-daughter. Often enough, her joy seemed infectious, sending Catherine into uncommon fits of laughter.

The Dowager Empress missed her, perhaps as much as she missed her own father, though Germaine served more as a companion than a mother, being only four years older than Catherine. She fully expected that the Frenchwoman would be eager to have her return to Aragon as would her father.

Catherine looked down at the letter she was writing, squinting through her spectacles. 

_ Your highnesses, _

_ Beloved mother and father. I write with the most sorrowful news. His highness, Maximillian, first of his name, Holy Roman Emperor, my beloved lord husband, passed into the arms of God in the dead of night, after suffering great pains. I do hope you will have the kindness to pray for him as I will and keep him well in your memories.  _

She honestly wouldn’t be surprised if her father toasted Maximillian’s death for a moment before turning his ever calculating eye onto little Charles once it was announced that Catherine’s womb was empty. 

_ I would have some word of your highnesses’ own health and what you would have me do. I must take a moment to assure you that his late highness has taken measures to ensure my comfort should you wish me to remain in Austria, though it would bring me much joy to see your highnesses’ again.  _

_ I do trust you will wish the same.  _

_ Your loving daughter, _

_ Catalina D’Aragona, De Castille, Infanta of Spain, Holy Roman Empress _

She could not risk using a code, not with her ladies hovering in her door in their black dresses and veils, eyes bearing into her back; not with her latest cypher having been broken by one of the dead de Rohan’s prodigies not two weeks ago. That man had kept Catherine busy day and night when she was in Spain, writing up new codes and breaking his inventions.

It did not matter.

Ferdinand the second of Aragon was far too canny a man and knew his youngest daughter far, far too well not to read between the lines.

Catherine sealed it carefully, turning the ring just to the right so it was crooked. An easy trick that would tell her father if it had been resealed. 

The odds were that it would be.

“Highness?” The voice of Dona Elvira called from the doorway. Always eager to get on with things, her duenna was. She would have had her kept away from her husband’s death bed if Catherine had allowed it. 

“A moment,” She replied. A queen could not attend her husband’s funeral, especially not one who had been wed to one without a male heir and who was of childbearing age. 

Catherine would spend a month in the darkness of her rooms, locked away from the world of men; locked away from even the smallest scrap of information; locked away from Lina, Oviedo and Fray Fernández. 

As she stood up from her desk she felt a gush and the heat of her menstrual blood as it dripped onto her thighs.

_ Have mercy on my soul, _ Catherine thought.  _ Let nothing foul come upon us while I am locked in this cage. _

* * *

**January 4th, 1511**

Catherine met the English Ambassadors in the salón de Embajadores, sitting on her royal father’s throne. She was dressed in a French gown, gifted to her by her step mother, as a response to her French suitor’s show of interest. Word would reach Louis’ ambassadors quickly of her show of favor. 

It would be better to let Louis think he was to be tied to Spain than allow him to try and nestle himself into the arms of the English, afterall. 

Even though that would do him no good if that young bull of a King was as much of a warhawk as she’d heard. 

The two Englishmen would likely make note of it as well, though Catherine was gambling on them seeing it as the influence of the lean, long faced woman sitting to her left. 

Bishop William Knight was a broad shouldered man with a shaved face and a deceptively even tempered disposition. The three spies she had in his household said he was prone to the worst of moods. His companion, John Stile, on the other hand was the most secretive of fellows, having had a decade to grow accustomed to subterfuge of the Aragonese court.

That is to say, she only had one spy within his household; his secretary. 

Catherine clenched her fingers on the arms of her father’s throne and swallowed as the men bowed to her. 

“My Lords,” Catherine greeted them. “We have much we would know of your royal master and his proposed match with our dearest niece.”

“His highness,” Stile replied. “My master sends his kindest regards and prayers for both yourself, her highness and his highness, your royal father.”

“I am certain of it,” Germaine de Foix said. “As is his duty and we thank him for it.”

The older woman started tapping her heel next to Catherine, a nervous tell that could be hidden by her voluptuous Spanish skirts but felt through the wooden boards of the hollow dias. 

“My master wishes to discuss the possibility of a new trade agreement,” Stiles told her. 

“Then, why has he broken our last one?” Germane replied, in French. 

“His highness….” Bishop Knight began. 

“Believes my father may make war on him, does he not?” Catherine asked. Knight’s mouth twitched downward. 

“No, your highness,” Knight assured her. “He has every faith in your father’s affections for him and wishes to maintain…”

“Why?” Catherine asked, cutting him off. 

“Your highness?” Knight replied. 

“Your royal father has never given my master reason to doubt his affections,” Stile responded.

“Why should he think that my father’s affections are going to change?” Catherine asked. “Or is it more than a thought? A certainty, perhaps?”

Stile held her gaze for a moment and she smiled gently at him. 

“His highness,” Stile told her. “Has every reason to fear your royal father’s ever wandering eye. How many promises has he broken to my master? How many lies have flown from Spain’s lips into English ears, Madame?”

Catherine leaned forward, laced her fingers together in front of her and her smile grew broad, baring her teeth to the two men. 

“It is  _ your  _ king’s wandering eye that you ought to be concerned with, gentlemen,” Catherine said. “Is it not he who has sent a man to the Pope seeking to wed an already married woman rather than my cousin, the good Eleanor?”

Juana’s swollen, red, tear stained face peered at Catherine from behind her eyes. Her jolly laugh filled Catherine’s ears, cracking open into a choked moan and then the hiccuping gasps of sobbs. 

“Your highness,” Stiles replied. “I can assure you that whatever rumor has reached you from Rome is entirely untrue.”

“The arrival of one Thomas Casali is nothing but a lie?” Catherine asked. “Alongside a man named Brandon? One who Doctor Mendoza, our own embassy to his holiness, recognizes to be a childhood playmate of your master? Am I to disbelieve the word of my ambassadors? The letters from the sons of Spain blessed enough to become Cardinals?”

“My Lords,” Germaine said, not allowing them to reply. “Might we ask that your gentle master be frank with us.”

It was rather unusual for her rather private step-mother to use the royal “we.” Just as unusual as her greeting ambassadors in her husband’s name. 

Catherine thought she had never heard such venom in Germaine’s voice.

“What causes his highness to be so unhappy with his bride to be?” Germaine continued. 

_ The French War _ , Catherine thought.  _ God save that fool. _

“His highness waits as eagerly for her arrival as any gentle, godly husband for a beloved bride,” Stiles told her. “I can assure you that the past unfortunate series of complications is all that delays the full consummation of the match.”

“You’ll excuse us for naming him a liar,” Catherine replied, temper starting to fray. “For how can a man coveting another man’s wife claim to be  _ godly? _ ”

“Your highness…” Knight spluttered out. “I must beg your pardon for…”

“No. I misspoke,” She said, leaning back in her throne and failing to compose herself. “How can a man-not coveting-but trying to  _ steal  _ another man’s wife call himself godly?” 

* * *

**January 9th, 1510**

Henry, King of England, Ireland and France was praying, laying across the ground of his chapel as his grandmother used to do. It was a habit he’d despised when she was still alive; mother of a King; regent of England; an old, creaky knee-ed woman who, once Henry had believed to be immortal.

He’d held her hand while she died, burning with fever and gasping for air. 

Henry turned his head to the other side, pressing his right cheek to the cold floor and relieving the pressure on his right one. It provided some relief for his headache.

He’d been reading too much, squinting down at missives, correspondences and new reports of how France and Spain named each other  _ brother _ while their armies bled the Italian countryside dry.

Henry took a deep breath and began his Hail Marys. He might as well pray for his soul while he was before an altar. God knew he didn’t do it often enough. 

“Henry?” A soft voice called from the doorway. He turned his head to see Nan lingering there, her flaxen hair loosened from the braids she’d been wearing that evening. 

“Your brother let you out this evening?” Henry asked and pushed himself up, groaning. He’d shipped her husband off to Portugal two months after she’d married the Earl of Huntingdon. Old simpering fool. 

He wondered if Buckingham would have married her to him if Henry had had the sense to demand her for himself. Anne Hastings walked quietly over to him as he got up, stood up on her toes and kissed him gently, putting her hand on his collar bone. She was a good woman, regardless of what Wolsey and Howard might whisper behind his back. They often liked to imagine  his ears were so muffled by siren songs of glory that he couldn’t hear them. 

“He doesn’t know I’ve left,” She told him. “Will- _ Compton _ -helped me.”

“Thank God for him,” Henry replied and kissed her forehead. He saw her all too infrequently as it was. A pity he couldn’t toss her meddling sister and arrogant arse of a brother out of court but he knew what trouble they could very well cause wouldn’t be worth it. 

“Bed?” She inquired. “Cards? Your highness looks worn.”

“I am,” Henry told her. “I am, Jesus save me.”

Nan kissed his cheek, lips as soft as the flutter of a moth’s wing. He pulled her against him and sagged into her arms. She smelled like sweat, rosemary and horses. It would linger in his bed after she was gone, along with strands of her long blond hair that he’d end up picking off his nightshirt when he ate his breakfast. 

She took his hand gently and tugged him toward the door. Henry followed more than willingly, squeezing her hand and taking care to shut the door behind him. They shuffled down the small, dark hall that lay between the chapel and his bedroom. The wood was not as cold on his feet as the marble stone of the chapel but he still shuttered. He let his eyelids droop down and wondered if Compton had already set out the mulled wine. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t matter, for standing in front of his door, arguing with his Groom of the Stool was the Duke of Buckingham.

* * *

**February 3rd, 1512**

Fonseca stood in front of the Infanta, still draped in her widow's blacks. Her skin had gained the pallor of a corpse during her fruitless confinement. It suited her, only a few shades lighter than her normal coloring. 

He bowed stiffly, the muscles of his lower back aching as he did so, and swept his hat off his head. 

“Your highness,” He greeted her. She offered her hand for him to kiss. He did so gladly. 

“Your grace,” She said. “It is kind of you so visit me so soon.”

“The court has missed the joy of your presence as flowers miss the sun when the clouds come,” Fonseca informed her. That made the little Infanta smile, something that had been hard to draw out of her even when she was a small child. 

“Very kind of you, your grace,” She replied. “But I fear that you have not come to just bask in my light.”

From off to the Infanta’s left, her duenna scowled and made a tutting sound. 

“As lovely as your words are of course,” The Infanta continued more loudly than before, looking at the older woman from out of the corner of her eye.

“I must admit that you are right, your highness.” Fonseca told her. “Though such business is made a pleasure by your company.”

This time her smile was the wry, tricky one of her father’s. It was one she wore only in victory. He would ask what had occurred in those dark rooms once he found one of the De Salinas girls alone. Preferably the older. The brunet had a tongue as loose as her morals were becoming rumored to be. 

The blond was more likely to warn the Infanta of his interest in her personal business and that would do him no good.

“I bring word from your good father,” Fonseca told her. “He shares in your great grief and is highly concerned for your welfare.”

“Maximillian, my late lord, has been as generous with me in death as he was in life,” Catherine replied. “I am bequeathed 500,000 ducats as a widows jointure with an income of 50,000 a year should I remain  _ une femme sole  _ and 60,000 to be contributed to my dowry should I take a second husband.”

Fonseca sucked in a breath and barely kept a bright grin off his face. He would have to send little Herdandez riding for Huesca the moment he left his good Infanta. He might also give Mendoza some warning in Rome and the Bishop of Mallorca in Paris. God, Louis and Ferdinand willing, the Dowager Empress could be Queen of France before Yuletide. 

“He was a wise man,” Fonseca told her. “To see you cared for in such a manner.”

“Yes,” Catherine replied. “What news do you have of England? France? Spain? Naples?”

“The English have all but declared war on France, though they have begun offering the Princess Mary to his grace, King Louis,” Fonseca told her. “Your royal father and step-mother are most eager to see you returned home. His highness has decreed that it would be most displeasing to him to see your highness widowed in a foriegn court for longer than it takes to arrange a proper escort to ensure your safe conduct.”

“He fears the French?” The Infanta asked. 

“No,” Fonseca shook his head. “He is most certain they would allow you safe passage, nay, welcome you as befits your stature should you travel through their country.”

The Infanta pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes before she beckoned him forward. He came, dutifully, just as he’d come whenever her grand, beautiful mother had called him close to whisper something in her delicate ear. 

“Speak plainly,” She whispered. “I have lost my talent for subtlety in the blunt company I’ve endured.”

Fonseca barely, barely kept himself from looking at Elvira; the old, hard headed duenna was all but a dulled axe in comparison to the Infanta’s canny, sharpened blade of a mind. She wouldn’t have made good conversation nor good company for Catherine.

“Your father has offered you to the King,” Fonseca told her. “And Louis has replied that he would prefer a ‘woman of such wisdom and bearing as her highness, the Dowager Empress” to any other.”

The Infanta blinked and frowned. 

“How old is that English Maria?” Catherine asked. 

“Sixteen,” He told her. “And acclaimed as the flower of womanhood by her country; beloved by her brother and she was said to be favored by her father with great gifts in her infancy.”

Catherine nodded. 

“How are my royal father and my nephew to be?” She asked and flicked her fingers. Dutifully, he stepped back. It was a gesture inherited from her father; just as her unnerving, cold eyes were. Oh, their shape was the same as her mother’s beautiful, blessed, gentle eyes-the only thing she seemed to have gotten from her-but the color was Ferdinand’s.

“Your father is as ever preoccupied with Naples…” He began.

“Of course, this new trouble in Italy must weigh on him,” She cut him off, eyes darting to her ladies. This time Fonseca glanced at Elvira and bit back a sigh. He wondered if the Infanta would want to be rid of her.

“And the King of England has, if rumor is to be believed, ridded himself of his woman,” Fonseca told her. She perked up like a fox, like her mother had been prone to. Then she smiled. 

“When will he take Eleanor?” The Infanta asked, her father’s vicious, wry, victorious smile upon her full lips.

* * *

**March 25th, 1511**

Catherine kicked Ferdinand in the shin as hard as she could before he could slap her hand away from the grape. The twenty two year old popped her prize into her mouth and interlaced her fingers across her lap. Ferdinand sat back and scowled at her.

Catherine held his gaze easily. She had long ago learned to enjoy whatever victory she could grasp from her father with great relish. 

“Would you like another?” He asked.

“No,” Catherine replied. She’d shared a platter of them with her new ladies in waiting; Maria, and her sister Rosa, as well as Lina, who liked them as much as she did. 

“Nonsense,” Ferdinand said and pushed the plate toward her. “The Emperor is not a man given to frivolity; enjoy it while you may.”

“I am not a woman given to frivolity,” Catherine replied. 

“I’ve raised you well then,” Ferdinand boasted. “To my personal satisfaction.”

Catherine squeezed her fingers and nodded to him. 

She’s seen her sister hauled into a wagon, dressed in red and black, her gold hair braided into the finest twists, from a window.

Lina had heard her screaming, praying to God and damning Ferdinand to hell- _ might all his children with his whore suffer as I have. _

“I will do my duty father,” Catherine replied and reached out to put her hand on his arm. “I am a faithful daughter of Spain.” 

“My favored one,” Ferdinand smiled and Cartherine’s stomach curdled. “I have never loved another of my children more, Catalina, not even your brother, may god rest his soul.”

Catherine looked away from him. She had barely known John, eleven years separating their births; hundreds of miles often separating their households. There were times when she thought she could no longer remember his face but, then, inevitably sometime- _ days, weeks _ -later the image of his grey, sallow, embalmed face would rise from the depths of his mind accompanied by her mother and sister-in-law’s wails.

“Thank you, Father,” Catherine said. “I have never desired anything more than to make you proud.”

“And Maximillian,” Ferdinand replied. “He will expect a good wife.”

“And I shall be one,” Catherine assured him. “I am a daughter of Spain; reared to be a loyal wife and raise my children to be our dutiful allies.” 

“We are in great need of those, are we not?” Ferdinand commented. He plucked another grape from the plate and bit it in half. 

“We are strong, Father,” Catherine replied. “As strong as we have ever been. There are none who would challenge us.”

“The French do,” He grunted. Catherine took her hand off his arm and put it on the table. One of her happiest moments was when he’d turned his back to her, swung himself up into his saddle and rode through his assembled troops, to the very head of the army he would march back to Spain. She remembered how the cold, massive weight of her chain of estate had first felt on her shoulders. 

Catherine had quickly grown to like it. 

“I humiliated Louis in Naples,” Catherine replied. “He fights only to maintain the illusion of his masculinity and honor. The French will fold like cards in the fall.” 

Ferdinand poured himself a glass of wine and then took her glass from in front of her. He filled it. 

“Here,” He said, handing it back to her. “Drink.”

“Thank you, Father,” Catherine said and reached for her wine. Ferdinand flung it in her face, getting it in her eyes and ruining the front of her dress. The liquid was cold on her skin, dripping down her throat and forehead. She flinched and covered her face with her hands, waiting, waiting, waiting. 

The sound of a plate being scraped across the wooden table was all she heard. Therefore, carefully, she rubbed her stinging eyes and swallowed down a half-sobb. 

“Are you certain you won’t take another grape?” Ferdinand inquired. Catherine wondered what would happen if she hit him. 

“Yes, Father,” Catherine replied, voice cracking. She held out her hand, palm turned upward to receive her treat. He dropped it into her hand, a benevolent smile on his face. “Thank you.”

He reached out and pinched her cheek gently. 

“Of course, my darling,” He said. “Of course, my Catalina.”

* * *

**May 19th, 1511**

Henry was seated at the head of his council table, looking over the map laid out in front of him. Calais stood, the sole English banner left on the continent. There were a dozen paths he could take from his land into the depths of France, each blocked by high walled cities grown fat off a century of English disinterest. Wolsey was to his left and Warham to his right, both churchmen fighting not to glare at the other. 

Thom- _ Thom More _ -had said that this war was an utterly horrible idea, or, well, had implied it politely, on the basis of his humanist principles of course. 

“What are we to do about the Scots, your highness?” Boleyn inquired from where he sat at the other end of the table. 

“They’ll swarm over the border the moment your grace sets sail,” Howard informed him. 

“And that is where you’ll be waiting to meet them.” Henry replied. “ _ General  _ Howard.” 

The old man squirmed in his seat and sighed, face going pinched. Henry found himself distinctly unimpressed with the man his father had once named  _ the hardiest of warhorses _ . 

“We will leave you, my Lord Chancellor,” He nodded to Warham. “And his grace of Buckingham to see to the defences.”

“Your highness…” Wolsey protested, seemingly surprised. The good chaplin knew very well what he had planned. Henry held up a hand, silencing him.

“I leave England in the hands of the best of my countrymen.” Henry told him. Stafford would be greeting him in chains when he came back from France, God willing. He could rot for a year or two, until Nan had been freed from her husband and then be released to watch his sister crowned and stew in her victory.

_ Arse,  _ Henry thought.  _ You’d think he’d want her happy or at least content. _

“Chaplin Wolsey will, as we discussed, be coordinating our supply chain and I expect you to acquiesce to his demands,” He saw jaws tighten around the table.

“Very good your highness,” Thomas Boleyn said. “May I inquire if you’d be in need of….”

“I’d prefer to make use of your talents in Austria,” Henry told Boleyn. “We are still in need of their continued goodwill.”

“Does your highness truly expect that Maximillian will look favorably upon England after the...complications with the Archduchess Eleanor?” Warham asked. Henry glared at him. No he did not. Even a child would know better than that.

“No,” Henry replied. “But I do trust that, as ever, he is a practical man with a great love for His Holiness and little love for the French.”

“And for his merchants,” Wolsey added.

“And his Spanish bride to be apparently,” Charlie said, cutting off Henry’s chaplin. 

The Spanish regent, Ferdinand’s youngest, had made it plain that England would find little support there.  _ Catherine _ , her name was Catherine. 

She was only a few months older than him, if his memory served and had been promised to Arthur. The Spanish had been unwilling to send her until she was of the proper age to be made a wife so she had never wed his late brother. 

She’d been offered to him after that but her mother had passed, breaking Spain in two and making her an unbeneficial prospect. He doubted he would have liked her much. The report he’d received from Spain said she was fair of complexion with large eyes but so short she could be considered stunted and a figure that no man could consider goodly. 

“We’ll see how pleasing he finds that harpy,” Henry muttered, eyes roaming over the recruitment and supply lists spread out in front of him.

“Where are the reports from my foundry?” He asked. 

“Here they are your highness,” Wolsey offered eagerly. When he looked up and gave the man a grin, he couldn’t help but notice an odd grimace on Thomas Boleyn’s face. 

There were notes about increased hours and complaints about pay on the first two sheets of parchment. Henry handed them off to Warham without a word. 

“See that these men earn a shilling or so more for their troubles,” He told his Lord Chancellor.

“Perhaps totaling four pounds a year?” The Bishop suggested.

“Can we afford that?” Howard grunted. “Better the money go into our soldiers' bellies or their pockets than to laborers.”

“Armorers,” Henry corrected. “They’ll be making the breastplates for your sons, Surrey, best not forget it.”

“You’ll need them when the Scots start raiding again,” Charlie snorted in amusement. Howard tensed and put a hand over his mouth, failing to cover his scowl.

“Do you have something else to say, My Lord Howard?” Henry asked. 

“It is foolish for you to lead the army for yourself,” Howard replied. “What would become of our England is you were to get an arrow to the throat or a lance to the heart or your cock blown off, your grace.”

“My England, _ ”  _ Henry said. 

_ Not yours. Mine. As it was my father’s before me.  _ He thought. 

“When a king leads his men their courage is doubled; their resilience hardened to steel and their determination magnified tenfold,” Wolsey replied. 

“Exactly,” Henry said, seizing the opportunity with both hands. 

“Your grace,” Warham muttered lowly. Henry snapped his head around and leveled him with glare.

“An excellent point, Chaplin,” Boleyn said. “The presence of the King at an English victory would certainly strike fear into the hearts of the French and hope in that of our allies in Italy.”

“Henry,” Warham muttered. Henry felt his jaw clench in rage and brought his hand down on the table. 

That shut everyone at the table up. 

“I will take a victory for England and the Pope,” Henry announced. “If you want me wed then perhaps you ought to have found me a well dressed, well dowered wife.”

Instead they’d left him to win one for himself. He wondered what Nan would say to Howard’s nonsense. God, she’d probably mourn more than he would and he’d mourn quite a bit.

* * *

**August 29th, 1511**

The Infanta arrived only to be greeted by harsh downpour, wind whipping the rain into a wailing, thrashing, unpleasant wall of water. She wore a heavy, black, now drenched veil of black lace. Catherine only hoped she wouldn’t catch some chill. 

She was to be received by the Archduchess Eleanor and presented to the Emperor, her promised husband that evening. Lightning cracked above her and she made note to arrange for her women to have hot water brought to them for baths and to send a doctor to check Lina and her sons over. Such young, such small babes would be vulnerable to the cold brought on by this violent gale. Mayhaps Elvira as well. She had only just recovered from a fever caught when they were at sea.

Catherine watched the country house grow in size as her Spanish party grew ever closer. It was well built, though she would brick up one of the windows if she could. 

Juana had written when they were younger; Catherine a girl with no memory of her sister’s beautiful face and Juana a woman; a mother; a wife just turning mad from her husband’s neglect. She had said that Maximillian disliked the cost of building but her Philip would build a new court for her; for them; for all of Europe to marvel at.

Juana had thrown a plate at her husband, fair haired but decidedly unhandsome, when he had teased Catherine, asking if she was ready for a husband. She’d been shaking when she did it, long nails curled into claws, foaming with rage when that man had dragged her off. The next day at mass, Juana had had a bruise on her jaw and wore a collar, tailored abnormally high.

As rode into the courtyard, she wondered why God would treat one of his most vulnerable children as cruelly as she was. Except it had not been God, it had been Philip, it had been their father. 

Catherine took a deep breath as she pulled her horse to a halt and slipped easily from the saddle. Her boots splashed in the puddles, staining the hem of her dress with muddy water. It could be laundered. 

Eleanor met her in a room just off of the small reception hall. She had Juana’s golden curls but her father’s squinted eyes and jutting chin. 

Catherine took care not to trod on the rug with her muddy boots and soaked clothes. Eleanor smiled, clumsily, awkwardly, smugly when Catherine bobbed a slight curtsy but quickly responded in kind.

“Dearest Aunt. Beloved Grandmother,” The Austrian said. “I am delighted to see you, finally, arrived-hale and hearty-to us.”

_ I’m wet as a dog and cold,  _ Catherine thought. 

“And I am most grateful to finally have the great pleasure of your acquaintance,” Catherine replied. She took the liberty of lifting her veil from her face, exposing her pale cheeks. Regardless, Eleanor came forward and kissed her as was proper. 

“I am so very glad to meet you at last,” Catherine said. “And I thank you for your kind welcome.”

Eleanor smiled widely. It pulled her chin back somewhat and Catherine felt as if the air was ripped from her chest.

“I only just received your last letter a week ago,” Eleanor replied. “But I have much to tell you.”

“I would be glad to hear it,” Catherine said diplomatically. 

_ You look like your mother,  _ She did not say.

“Yet…” She began but Eleanor was already pulling a small golden, circular box from her purse. She unclasped the lip, flicking it back on its hinges and displayed it very proudly.

It was the well made likeness of a fine featured, dark eyed, red haired man. 

“The King of England?” The Infanta inquired.

“Yes,” Eleanor said. “He’s very handsome isn’t he?”

“Indeed,” Catherine responded. “A most beautiful prince but I am afraid I am dripping on your carpet at the moment.”

She had to wonder just how generous the artist had been with  _ that  _ man. 

What a disaster this was. God help her if they hadn’t heard of the King’s love.

**Author's Note:**

> AU Notes:  
> Mendoza, Fonseca and Thomas Casali were actual people; Diego Fernández de Córdoba y Mendoza, 3rd Count of Cabra, Alonso de Fonseca, archbishop of Santiago de Compostela and Casali was a freelance diplomat who worked on the King's "Great Matter." Mendoza and Fonseca negotiated Catherine's marriage to Arthur and second to Henry. The Bishop of Mallorica accompanied Catherine to England as did the other two ambassadors. 
> 
> Maximillian actually died in 1519 and Anne of Brittany died in 1514. Originally, Catherine was supposed to be Louis XII's widow who got shipwrecked on the English coast and...well, what a diplomatic mess England has on our hands.
> 
> Instead, she's Maximillian's widow, Ferdinand's daughter and Louis' wife-to-be because it works a much better to explain why Catherine's ransom doesn't get paid ASAP. 
> 
> Yes, Henry is a douche. His réaction to Catherine is similar to how he reacted to Anne of Cleves after he went to meet her in a disguise and she ignore him and freaked out when he tried to kiss her (look the story up it's interesting). 
> 
> Bumping down Catherine's age to match Henry's (she would have been 28/29 historically in 1513and 29/30 in in the Spanish Princess timeline) explains why she wouldn't have been married earlier.  
> I should note, in case I didn't make it clear, Henry's age is historically accurate so he's 22/23, again explaining why he wouldn't have been married off beforehand.  
> Anne Hasting/Stafford, Countess of Huntingdon was probably one of Henry's mistresses. Her brother and sister found out and removed her from court, causing a quarrel with Henry.


End file.
